


And the Shadows Will Never Find You

by PinkRangerV



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers
Genre: Autism, Autistic!Tommy, Warning: ABA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 17:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6619180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkRangerV/pseuds/PinkRangerV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy has autism. His world is very, very different. AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Shadows Will Never Find You

**Author's Note:**

> If you are triggered by descriptions of child abuse, go to the end notes for an explanation of the ABA warning BEFORE you read the story.

They put Tommy in therapy when he was a little boy, and when he came out, they said he was cured.

 

Quiet hands. (The therapist grabbed his hands and made him sit on them, then swabbed his mouth with pickle juice. It almost hurt, how strong the nasty taste was.) No stimming. (The therapist made him hold his hand against itchy-prickly drywall.) Look people in the eye. (But don’t stare. That was creepy. Pickle juice again.)

 

They taught him words and phrases and how to move and how to pretend, it was all about how to pretend he was normal. Autism was bad. He could be a good boy if he tried hard enough. He could make his parents happy. That was what was important, making everyone else happy. “Even if it feels bad, you have to do it, Tommy,” The therapist told him over and over again. “It’s important to be a good boy, isn’t it?”

 

And he was a good boy. He tried really hard and he was a good boy. And he was all better now. No more autism.

 

Then one day he tapped his fingers on the table, in an old, old pattern his brain knew from who knew where.

 

He stopped. Froze. Bad bad bad, he could never, that was against the rules. And he got up and walked away and did nice, normal things after that.

 

The next day they sent him to live with his Uncle John. And Tommy realized he would never be a good enough boy to make them happy.

 

*             *             *

 

He woke and felt…

 

Wanted.

 

There were other things in his head. The world was clear and simple now, revolving around Empress Rita, and he belonged to her utterly. But that paled in comparison. She was watching him, and she _wanted him around_. Wanted him serving her.

 

Tommy rose shakily and blinked at her, unsure of what to do.

 

“Kneel before your Empress, Tommy.” Empress Rita explained.

 

Tommy knelt, as best he knew how. “How may I serve you, my Empress?” The words came from the same place as the servitude, something strange inside him, something wonderfully clear and simple but…

 

Every time he tried to see what was underneath that, where his emotions were, things went fuzzy and he was thinking about something else.

 

“Now what’s this?” Empress Rita demanded, reaching out and running her hands through his hair. “Who put this there?” She screeched. “You’re mine! Mine! What business do those _humans_ have, getting in your head?”

 

A flick of her magic, and the world tilted sideways.

 

And suddenly he wasn’t _afraid_ any more.

 

Tommy looked down at his hand, and tapped a finger experimentally. It was… _good_. No fear, no worry, no pain. He tapped again and again in the pattern and felt his entire brain sigh and relax in a way it hadn’t in _years_.

 

“What’s that?” Empress Rita demanded.

 

“My patterns, my Empress.” Tommy said honestly. “I…move my fingers. Or…” He gestured, flapping with his hands.

 

Logically, he knew it angered humans, to see it. (He hadn’t thought of himself as human since he was eight. He wasn’t whatever Rita was, but he wasn’t human, either. Humans didn’t like him.) Empress Rita was humanoid; she might be angry too.

 

Empress Rita considered. “Well. That’s good, you’ll bond to the Power much more effectively. You do that if you like, Tommy, just pay attention to me when I talk.”

 

The full implications of what she had just said, what she _offered_ , bounded across Tommy’s mind like lightning, and suddenly he knew, in a way that went straight into his soul, that he would walk into Hell for this woman.

 

“Now, these are the Power Rangers…” Empress Rita began, showing him images.

 

Tommy’s fingers danced in an endless pattern as he hung on every word.

 

*             *             *

 

The spell was broken.

 

A spell. The feeling of being _wanted_ , the clarity and purpose, the hatred and rage and sweet, sweet blessing of his hands moving and not knowing how people worked and it all _being all right_ —

 

It felt like Tommy’s soul was being torn apart, and he stayed silent, because only bad boys scream.

 

“Tommy! Are you okay?” Jason’s hand landed on Tommy’s shoulder.

 

It was a blast of raw energy, and Tommy skittered away. No. Not now. Not—he was being a bad boy, he would get in trouble—why had the spell _broken_ , oh, the Sword of Darkness was destroyed—why wasn’t Rita _teleporting_ him, she _wanted_ him, he _knew that_ —

 

“Tommy?”

 

He blinked at the Rangers. At the nice, normal, _good_ people. And he’d tried to kill them.

 

The world tilted in the way it did when a realization re-arranged it.

 

Rita had asked him to kill humans. Sentient beings. Beings like him.

 

That was the price for being wanted and happy.

 

It hurt. A lot. Tommy took the pain and pushed it aside, because that was wrong—he could not, _would not_ , kill people. Not even for that. He could almost see the dead in his mind’s eye, almost but not quite, and didn’t push. If he remembered fully he would be crying for days.

 

He looked at the Rangers. “Are you guys okay?” He asked.

 

“Yeah. Are you?” Red—Jason—asked.

 

He wasn’t even remotely okay. But that wasn’t what humans wanted to hear. “Yeah.” Tommy said. “Sorry, you just startled me.”

 

“You know that wasn’t you, right?” Jason asked.

 

_It was,_ Tommy said in his own mind, _I loved her, I chose her, I was an idiot_ —but humans didn’t want to hear that either. “Yeah.”

 

“Do you want to join us?”

 

Tommy considered that.

 

Objectively, yes. They did good. He wanted to do good. But could he stay a good boy for long enough? Stop himself from tapping his fingers or flapping his hands or…

 

Could he fight _Rita_?

 

That settled it, somehow. The pain turned into rage, and Tommy nodded crisply. “Yeah.” He said. “If…if you want me.”

 

“Definitely!” Kimberly said with a grin. There were other things in it, but Tommy couldn’t read it.

 

Jason offered an arm.

 

This was to fight Rita, Tommy knew. So he nodded to himself, steeled himself, and took the offered arm.

 

It felt like electricity down his skin.

 

It was worth it.

 

*             *             *

 

He lasted two days before he caught his fingers tapping again.

 

He still felt no fear.

 

He cursed Rita’s name for a good ten minutes before forcing his hand still again.

 

*             *             *

 

The monster was using Tommy’s pattern.

 

Beat-beat-BEAT-beat. Tommy heard it and felt himself want to scream instead of relax. That bitch. That…there were no words, not in English, for the sense of _absolute betrayal_ , of wrongness, of a fundamental, intentional destruction of every justice in the world.

 

“What the hell is that _beat_?” Jason shouted over the comlinks.

 

Tommy raised his blaster and shot the damn thing in the head.

 

To his eternal surprise, it fell down and stopped moving.

 

“Headshots _work_?” Tommy heard himself asking, and then it registered, he just _shot a living being_ , a sentient that could speak and talk and—

 

His hands were flapping and Kimberly grabbed his blaster.

 

His hands were flapping and he couldn’t stop and…

 

_The world went fuzzy and grey._

 

*             *             *

 

“Morning.”

 

Tommy was laying on some kind of cot, demorphed. He stayed put, blinking up at Trini. “My head went grey.” He finally settled on saying.

 

“Yeah. Uh, are you autistic?” Trini asked. “Because we’ve been talking and…um. Maybe you should just hear this.”

 

Everyone had gone quiet. Tommy didn’t want to sit up, he wanted to curl under the blanket and hide, but he sat up anyway. (Have to be brave. Have to be good even when it hurts.) “I’m a person with autism.” He said. “They cured it, but Rita…she did something to my head. So I wasn’t cured anymore.”

 

“Autism cannot be cured, Tommy.” Zordon said, and there was a hint of kindness in his tone. “Your brain is formed slightly differently from others of your species. It is not an illness, and nothing is wrong with you. You are just different.”

 

Tommy shook his head. “It’s bad. I’m sorry. I tried to be good. I can try harder.”

 

“You’re not _bad_.” Kimberly said, walking over to sit next to him. She didn’t touch him; she just stayed close. Tommy leaned against her. He had a sleep shirt on, and cloth between skin made it tolerable. “You just…”

 

“Hang on.” Jason said, looking up at Zordon. “It’s not a disease?”

 

“No.” Zordon said, sounding a bit miffed. “It is most certainly not. In fact, it heightens Tommy’s connection with the Power. That is why you experienced what you did. The Power can take extra steps to protect your mind, Tommy, and you were very upset.”

 

“What?” Tommy demanded. “It’s… _in my head_?” Like magic? Like Rita?

 

“Of course.” Zordon said, sounding _proud_ , although Tommy had no idea what his face was saying. “It touches all of you with its protection.”

 

Suddenly, Tommy had a horrified vision of the others going grey like he had. He…couldn’t actually remember what he’d been doing. A monster? There had been a monster and…something bad had happened?

 

“You shot a monster in the head.” Trini said slowly. “And you were _upset_. Really upset.”

 

“I _killed something_?” Tommy demanded, squeaking a little. _Upset_? He’d _killed something_! How did the others not understand how _monstrous_ that was—

 

“Tommy.” Zordon interrupted. “You did the right thing. I should have warned you that your blasters could do that, but I did not want to inspire an attempt. It looks very much like a human murder, and that would have disturbed you. And you especially, Tommy, because you have a heightened sympathetic response.”

 

“He means you feel sympathy more.” Trini explained. Suddenly her eyes widened. “You went through—Rita was _in your head_ and you have _that_ much sympathy? Are you _sure_ you’re okay?”

 

Tommy shrugged. He was getting better.

 

“This is insane.” Trini said, shaking her head. “There’s no way you can fight like this, you’re going to end up suicidal in a month! Zordon—“

 

“Trini.” Zordon said disapprovingly. “The Power has chosen Tommy, as it chose you. It did not make a mistake in judgement. Tommy is very much a Ranger, and will continue to do as excellently as he has in the past.”

 

There was no arguing with that.

 

“The monster’s beat.” Kimberly said suddenly. “You tap your fingers that way. Stimming, right?”

 

Tommy nodded slowly. “My pattern.” He explained. “It’s…part of me. Rita was…taunting me.” Because he’d been _free_ with her, and now he was locked into a body he didn’t have the terror to control.

 

“Can you show us?” Billy asked, looking up from some papers.

 

Tommy frowned. They…wanted that? “People get mad.” Tommy warned. “When I do it.”

 

“We _won’t_.” Trini said emphatically. “ _Ever_. Right, guys?”

 

They all nodded.

 

Tommy considered, then touched the side of the cot, tapping with all his fingers. Beat-beat-BEAT-beat. Beat-beat-BEAT-beat. Over and over until it was hard to keep going, until he was too aware that it was performance.

 

He went still and wondered what they would make of him.

 

“C’mon, bro.” Jason said, going to sling an arm over Tommy’s shoulder, then hesitating. Tommy stood up and leaned carefully against him in a half-hug. “Sleepover. All of us. We need some crappy movies or something.”

 

They all teleported away.

 

*             *             *

 

A few days later, Tommy glanced up at lunchtime, then carefully started tapping his fingers.

 

They said nothing.

 

He tapped again and again, and it felt like freedom.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm autistic. April is 'Autism Awareness Month', when AutismSpeaks and a bunch of other assholes come on TV, tell you people like me are tragedies, and support 'research' to get rid of us. This is what it looks like when I apply that 'awareness' to Tommy.
> 
> To explain the warning, ABA uses operant conditioning--like how you train dogs, except WITH punishments modeled around exploiting sensory processing disorder--on young children to train them to behave 'normally'. Most behaviors advocated by ABA have no real-world applications beyond 'you no longer seem different'. It is child abuse. Read with that in mind.
> 
> This has a happy ending. Most of our stories do not. If you want to help make happy endings a reality, support the Autistic Advocacy Network and autistic voices, and TELL PEOPLE WHY YOU DO.
> 
> Thank you.


End file.
